While You Were Sleeping

Hands of Hope Blog

Have you ever seen the movie While You Were Sleeping? It’s one of my all-time favorites! I love Sandra Bullock’s character, Lucy, her crazy neighbor, Joe Junior, and of course, the entire sweet and super spunky Callaghan family. I think the part I’m the fondest of, however, is the train track scene in the beginning. Let me give you some background.

Lucy is a booth operator for the Chicago Transit Authority. Unfortunately, since she’s the only one who doesn’t have any living family members, her boss chooses her to work the Christmas Day shift.

Things are pretty normal that day until Peter Callaghan (played by Peter Gallagher) shows up. He absently tosses her his train token and wishes her a Merry Christmas. Lucy, who has suddenly been struck with a bad case of love at first sight, barely manages her mumbled “Heh,” reply. Peter walks away and Lucy is left struggling with the fact that she just blew her big chance with the man of her dreams.

A few seconds later, Lucy looks up from her booth just in time to see Peter being mugged and pushed onto the tracks. Now here comes the moment I love so much. In one incredible act of bravery, Lucy runs from her booth, down the platform, through the middle of the group of burglars, and actually jumps onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train in order to save him! All that for someone she had barely spoken one word to- talk about courage!

She could have simply sat in her booth and called 911. She could have checked on him from the safety of the platform. She could have ignored the situation altogether and continued going about her day. But she didn’t. She didn’t allow her fear to control her. In one miraculous faith and love driven moment, she leaped… and her life changed forever.

That scene always makes me wonder, what would happen if I were in that situation. If God called on me to help, would I answer? Would you? Granted, real-life tends to be a bit less dramatic than life in the big Hollywood blockbusters, but the question remains the same:

When God calls, do you sit or do you leap?